Don't know if any of you noticed, but there's a new type of vermin infecting discussion boards, including this one.

They're called "signature spammers" and unlike normal spam, which aare usually automated bots, these are real human beings. They have no interest in the Civil War or anything else on the board. Their only purpose is to post generic posts so they can attach a signature containing a link to some website, usually containing malware or some other scam, in their signature.

We've had about 5 join in the last 2 days. You can usually tell them by the generic nature of their post ( "I agree with that", "Hi, I'm new to the board and hope to learn, etc."), but they always have a link to a non-Civil War site in their signature.

For this reason we have turned off the option of attaching a signature on posts. Sorry for any inconvienance.

I'm wondering if some folks aren't starting to program spambots to provide a post that make them appear to beliving being. With so many spambots following the same basic pattern it becomes easier to spot them and at least temporarily remove them. So why not break the pattern and make it more difficult to spot a spambot?

Of course the flip side is that it is exactly what you said. The net allows for anonimity so anyone with malicous intent could simply go in and seek to harm others either through viruses or through a system that steals their personal information.

In either case I'm just thankful you're trying to watch out for us and keep us safe when we visit the forum.